The present invention is directed to the field of process control for an automated system, e.g. an industrial process system. The commissioning of a system or an automation system is usually associated with significant expense. Complex operating sequences must be accomplished in this phase in order to produce a correctly working system at the end of the commissioning phase.
Under the automation aspect, a system can be logically divided into two main areas: the control unit server (or other computer unit with the software executed thereon in order to control the process) and the process peripherals (i.e. operational components including actuators and sensors.) The process peripherals are represented in the control unit such that process values are read into the server and processed by the program being executed thereon, which calculates new adjusting values that are subsequently fed back into the process. Complex functions for representing input values and output values are executed on the server to direct the operational components. Depending on the respective application, the operational components can include components for monitoring filling levels or diverse controller components. In order to ensure that these operational components are able to fulfill their purpose in a specialized technical environment, they must be adapted to the process, that is, correspondingly parametized. For example, suitable specific values such as limiting values must be defined as parameters for controller components.
The above-described basic system requires that the commissioning of a system also includes the commissioning of the server and that the process peripherals must be connected. In the commissioning of the server, the configured software program must be executed on the server. It should be considered that the syntactical correctness of the program had already been checked during the engineering phase. Commissioning pertains to an examination of whether the program behaves logically and as intended when implemented, e.g., whether the cooling unit is activated once a limiting temperature is exceeded. This test can result in problems in that often no test system is available at an earlier point of the installation phase, i.e. the program must be tested without process peripherals. This results in the necessity to simulate the interface with the process in a suitable fashion.
As mentioned above, the important aspect in connecting the process peripherals consists of parametizing technological components carrying out fine-tuning. Conventional engineering systems for configuring systems provide possibilities for testing server programs and parametizing controllers. However, the disadvantage is that the installation for the engineering process are typically employed for this purpose. These tools provide an extensive series of mechanisms and a detailed overview of all configuring data of an entire system. However, only a small partial quantity of this information is required for the commissioning. Only certain installation functions, such as testing, parametizing, simulating of the process peripherals only certain installation), etc. operate in accordance with selected data, such as controller values, sensor values, simulation signals, etc. Consequently, the tools for commissioning a new system are unnecessarily complicated and difficult to use, resulting in an excessive amount of time and effort (and thus expense) in commissioning a new system.
In installation and commissioning of a previous-type system, it has been known to create custom interface masks that can be deployed on an operator station of the process control system. Such operator stations are used to deploy the operating and monitoring systems for controlling an automated processes, and such operating and monitoring systems typically employ a user-friendly graphical interface, or xe2x80x9cscreen mask.xe2x80x9d However, screen masks for installation and commissioning must be manually configured with resulting high expense. Such expense is frequently not justifiable due to their short xe2x80x9cservice life.xe2x80x9d Consequently, it is common to forego mask development and simply rely on rudimentary functions available from the engineering tools.
In view of the difficulties and drawbacks associated with previous-type systems, there is therefore a need for a method and implementation for commissioning that is simple and easy to use.
There is also a need for a method and implementation of commissioning that integrates specific functions and data into a uniform and user-friendly top level interface.
These needs and others are satisfied by the method and implementation of the present invention in which a software-implemented method and implementation is provided for commissioning an automated system. The implementation analyzes the configuration of one or more operational components in the automated system and generates one or more operator communication and monitoring masks for each of the operational components. An interface is provided with the at least one mask to parametize the at least one operational component.
As will be realized, the invention is capable of other and different embodiments and its several details are capable of modifications in various respects, all without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the drawing and description are to be regarded as illustrative and not restrictive.